Oy

When I came downstairs just now, this was the sight that greeted me.

4 degrees is freaking ridiculous.  Worse, note below it the low of negative 3 (degrees, not windchill!) from last night.  Where are we: Alaska??

Today was a snow day for the kids, courtesy of the storm that blew through yesterday.  It deposited six inches or so of the finest powder; enough to snarl traffic and slide school buses off the road and leave a sea of white in its wake.  This was the view from the driveway in a still moment this morning: icy as a witch's heart and clear as ice too; far too cold for clouds.

By noon, the temperature had climbed all the way to a balmy 18 degrees, and my stir-crazy children were bickering nonstop and begging to go outside.  (As a side note, I am vividly reminded why I am in no hurry for the calendar to roll around to summer vacation.)  After lunch, we bundled up like Randy from the movie A Christmas Story and braved the front yard.  The snow was not at all the right sort for snowballs or snowmen (too powdery to pack), but the kids did manage to make snow angels all over the yard and dig cave forts in the piles left by the snowplow.

  
Petunia and Thing One in their respective forts: I believe that Thing Two was in time-out when these shots were taken, for the offense of nearly decapitating his sister with a snow shovel.  Completely inadvertently, of course, but there must be repercussions for that sort of near miss to discourage a repeat event involving better aim.  (And let me also point out that Thing One's hat is actually a vivid blue--the white is all snow!)

It was a relief to go inside afterward and thaw out over hot cocoa, and a further, greater relief to subsequently load all three ruffians into the car and get them out of the house; the boys' weekly piano lessons were blessedly still on.  And, as it happens, I discovered by chance while at the piano teacher's house that her husband took one of Petunia's preschool teachers to his junior prom twenty-five years ago in an entirely different part of the state, speaking again to the premise that this is an extremely small world.

Thankfully, there is no reason for school to be cancelled tomorrow.  After the long weekend, an early dismissal and a snow day in rapid succession, the kids desperately need their regular routine back and so do I!    

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ETA: Just looked at the thermometer again and it is currently negative 2 degrees outside.  Bloody hell.